Kiyomura Co's President Kiyoshi Kimura, who runs a chain of sushi restaurants, wipes a sword as he cuts a 222 kg (489 lbs) bluefin tuna at his sushi restaurant outside Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo January 5, 2013. Kimura won the bid for the tuna caught off Oma, Aomori prefecture, northern Japan, with a record 155.40 million yen (1,762,700 USD) at the fish market's first tuna auction this year.
REUTERS/Toru Hanai (JAPAN - Tags: ANIMALS BUSINESS FOOD SOCIETY TRAVEL)

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A Japanese businessman this weekend, paid $1.7 million dollars for a 489-pound bluefish tuna, setting a new world record. The bluefin tuna is considered one of the more valuable fish in the world.

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Paul Greenberg, a James Beard award winning author, "Why Four Fish- The Last Final Food," says the Japanese buyer, Kiyoshi Kimura, set the record last year for the most expensive fish.

There are three types of bluefin fish, Atlantic, the Southern and the Pacific. Greenberg says the more common types of bluefin tuna found in restaurants are the Atlantic and Southern, while the Pacific bluefin is more scarce and has the reputation as being more of a status fish.

Bluefin tuna didn't become popular in Japan until after World War 2 when the Japanese were introduced to more fatty foods found in the American diet.

Greenberg cautions sushi eaters of the potential contamination of the tuna found in the waters off Japan due to last year's Fukushima nuclear meltdown. Mackerel, anchovies and sardines, he suggests, might be better choices.